


Outliers

by thesinfulship



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Boarding School, F/M, POV Multiple, Teenage Bruce and Julie, Young Bruce Wayne
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-01
Updated: 2016-08-19
Packaged: 2018-07-28 13:35:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7642669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesinfulship/pseuds/thesinfulship
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A (school) year in the life of young Bruce Wayne.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. September

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ThoughtfulConstellations](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThoughtfulConstellations/gifts).



Mr. Alton Mandel always prided himself on being one of those _creative_ educators, the type who came up with out-of-the-box assignments for his students and got remarkable results. This was often the case, and despite his reputation as a tough teacher, many of his students left his classroom drained, but polished. He had rigidly high standards and took next to no excuses for sub-par work.

“Basically, unless you’re bleeding from the eyeballs and fighting a fever of 105 and your mother just died, I expect B work, turned in on time, at the very _least_ ,” he would say on the first day of classes, and then his sharp eyes would scan the teenaged students. “And even a B isn’t going to endear you to me, I’ll warn you now. I do not accept less than excellence. In that way, I’m probably like many of your parents. You all come from highly privileged families, and you are expected to live up to a legacy, no? Well, this is where that begins. Right here.”

His yearly “pep talk”, as he called it, generally revealed each student to be one of two types: the nervous kids who usually surprised themselves by growing the most throughout the year, and the cocky kids who thought they had this in the bag and then got their asses kicked by the third week of classes. Almost every student fit into one of those two categories with little to no exception.

That is, until the year Bruce Wayne ended up in his class.

Seventeen years old and looking a little older, Bruce was a striking young man in many ways. Tall and dark-haired, with light blue eyes that were framed with eyelashes so thick it almost looked like he was wearing makeup. It was impossible to miss the boy in a crowd, even if he hunched a little to try to blend in. Most of the boys his age were anything but wallflowers, so the irony was that Bruce’s quiet nature actually made him stand out even more. Mandel found that kind of thing distasteful and unmanly, and he had little patience for shyness. Shyness, in his mind, was a sign of weakness. A man ought to be able to push through it and look another man in the eye, shake his hand firmly, stand with every inch of his God-given height on display.

Mandel fully expected Bruce to be one of the nervous kids who he would singlehandedly coax out of a shell by the end of the school year. He would give the kid tough love from September to June and watch him blossom from a boy to a man, watch him reach his academic and personal potential, and at the end of the year, they would shake hands and wish each other well. Then, Bruce would go on to accomplish great things, and perhaps someday would thank Mandel for being _that_ teacher in some speech at some big event. That teacher who guided him to do more, to do better. It had happened many times in the past, plenty of students inviting him to see them receive an award or get married and even the odd bar or bat mitzvah for their children, just so they could thank him for being _that_ teacher.

But Bruce was not one of the nervous kids, and Mandel did not know what to do with that.

He completed his talk about legacy and how tough the year would be, and he passed out the syllabus. His favorite part of this was watching every student’s eyes widen in horror at the amount of work they would be expected to complete. Bruce, though, did not have any reaction to note. Instead, Mandel watched the boy scribble a couple of notes on the syllabus, circle and underline a few things, and then calmly tuck it into his notebook as though it were nothing more than a list of school supplies.

All right, then. If he wasn’t going to be one of the nervous kids, clearly he was one of the cocky ones. Why else would he react so casually to that workload? All right, then, this was a new breed of cockiness. A slow burn. Maybe he would be like Allison Wiley, who Mandel reduced to tears in 1983 by giving her a D- six times in a row despite all her rewrites and her fiery insistence that he was being “totally unfair”. Allison went on to cry for half an hour in Mandel’s office, then go back to her dorm and rewrite one of the best papers Mandel had ever had the pleasure of reading. And after that, she graduated with honors and went on to be a highly-respected journalist. She had sent Mandel a letter thanking him for whipping her into shape that year, and she had included several pictures of herself on her many travels.

Mandel gave the students a few moments to look over their syllabus and get to know their study partners, and he took a moment for himself so he could make a few notes about the students. He had purposely sat Bruce next to Julie Madison, mainly because he knew they were polar opposites. Julie seemed to be one of the “nervous but willing” students, which Mandel liked. She was a sweet, bright girl, with vividly red hair and hands perpetually stained with ink and paint, and she was well-liked among the faculty. Her easy approachability might make her a good study partner for the gloomy boy at the next desk. He watched as Julie extended her hand to Bruce with a smile, watched as Bruce shook it with a shy expression, watched as Julie leaned in and muttered something that must have been funny if Bruce’s slight smile was any indication.

A moment later, Mandel saw Bruce pull his syllabus back out and point to something with a frown, and it looked as though he was asking Julie to clarify something, which of course she did with her usual friendliness. Bruce nodded then, looking relieved, and it occurred to Mandel that he had been wrong about the kid, that Bruce hadn’t just assumed the class would be a breeze, that Bruce had had questions but no intention of asking them. Bruce had clearly planned on keeping any confusion to himself, never asking Mandel for help, but Julie had been nice to him, so he asked.

The boy was no variation upon nervous or cocky that Mandel had yet encountered. He was, potentially, neither of those two things at all.

Well. An outlier. Wasn’t that going to be interesting?

 

 


	2. October

“Halloween is _fun_ , Bruce. It’s just fun. You should try fun on for size and see how it fits.”

Julie and Bruce had developed an odd sort of friendship since the start of school. For the first two weeks, they met up for an hour a day to study and do homework, and it was generally done in near-silence with five minutes of small talk on either side of it. Then, on a free Sunday, Julie had showed up at his dorm with an armful of junk food and several movies.

_“Pick a film, any film,” she had said, grinning at Bruce’s confusion. “You work too hard. You need a break. Trust me, you’ll be way more productive after a couple of hours of pure entertainment and a lot of sugar.”_

_Bruce had let her in, but had looked almost suspicious as he eyed the food and films. Julie had selected several of her favorites for him to consider, and a beautifully curated group of snacks._

_“Rushmore…The Princess Bride…Edward Scissorhands…My Own Private Idaho? I’ve never heard of that,” Bruce had said as he looked at the titles._

_“What?! Okay, sit down. You’re getting an education.”_

_“What’s it about?”_

_“Well, you know Shakespeare’s history plays, right?”_

_“Sure.”_

_“It’s those, basically. The Henrys. Well, sort of. It’ll make sense once you see it. Now, the big question: popcorn or candy to go with this?”_

Since that day, their relationship had become significantly more relaxed. Around anyone else, Bruce was still his quiet, almost overly observant self, but when it was just the two of them, he actually laughed and smiled freely. Julie’s other friends teased her a little, unable to fathom how the two could possibly get along. Julie had brushed it off with a shrug and a simple “opposites attract”, but she knew there was more to it than that. They just made sense, somehow, and Julie enjoyed Bruce’s company.

On this day, Julie had showed up for their homework session with a flier for the upcoming Halloween dance. Bruce had wrinkled his nose a little and turned down even the idea of going, claiming he’d prefer to just stay in and catch up on his paper for French class.

“Bruce, come _on_. I know it’s not really your kind of thing, but that could be good. You never know,” Julie said, her voice playful. “Besides, no one will expect you to be there. Don’t you want to see their faces when you show up?”

“Not particularly,” Bruce said, scratching out a phrase on his paper and starting to replace it. “What would be the point? Or is this part of your ongoing ‘get Bruce to make friends’ project?”

“You’re not a project.”

“Not a successful one, anyway.”

“I want everyone to see what a sweetheart you really are under all that brooding. Sue me,” she teased, nudging him.

“And ruin my carefully-crafted reputation? Never.”

“Okay, let me try framing it this way: I want to go to the dance.”

“So…go.”

“With you.”

Bruce looked up at that, his surprise obvious. Julie smiled.

“You want to go _with_ me?” Bruce asked, sounding like he was waiting for the catch.

“Yeah. I thought it would be fun,” said Julie. “We wouldn’t have to do coordinated costumes or anything, but I just thought…you know. Maybe you could be my date.”

Bruce blinked. “Your date.”

“Or…or not _date_ , if that’s not what you…I just thought it would be fun,” Julie repeated, mumbling and blushing a little now.

Bruce looked at the flier for a moment, picking it up and studying it like it was suddenly fascinating. Just when Julie was about to tell him to forget it and apologize for pressuring him into it, Bruce looked back up at her.

“Do you have any costume ideas?” he asked.

“You…you want to go? With me?” Julie said, her eyebrows raised.

Bruce nodded, keeping those light eyes of his trained on her face in that unwavering gaze Julie still wasn’t entirely used to. She grinned at him, feeling her cheeks go just a little pinker.

“Well. Cool,” she said. “I’m going as a galaxy.”

“Interesting.”

“I have tights I’ve painted with sparkles and stars and planets and stuff, and I have a dress that matches. I’m making a headband with stars on it, too.”

Bruce’s mouth twitched in a little half-smile. “I’ll come up with something, I guess.”

They went back to their homework, in silence, but neither could quite wipe the smiles off their faces for the rest of the day.


	3. November

Bruce liked Julie.

It was as simple as that, and it was just that – _simple_. In his previous experience, liking people had always taken some kind of effort, had required the forgiving of certain traits in order to enjoy others. Or, more often, it had required some sort of editing of himself so that they would like him in return. Bruce generally found that people preferred him when he was putting on an exhausting mask of geniality and pretending to enjoy meeting their expectations.

With Julie, though, it simply never occurred to him that she might want him to be any other way. She never seemed to expect it or even hint at it. Her considerable efforts to get Bruce to open up and make more friends came not from a place of trying to change him for her own sake, but from her desire for him to have more people who appreciated him. She felt he deserved that, and she tried to always at least extend an invitation for him to join her and her other friends in whatever activity they were getting up to. Though Bruce always turned it down, she still made sure to offer to include him.

 

Going to the Halloween dance last month had been a bit trying. Bruce had enjoyed the sit-down dinner put on by the faculty before the dance, since he and Julie sat by themselves and talked for most of it, but the dance itself had been draining. Julie’s popularity meant that lots of friends wanted to come by and shriek about her costume, yelling excitedly over the blaring volume of the music. Bruce’s own costume – a vague representation of a knight, which Julie had thought would be a stealthy pun to go with her own night sky costume – was less of a conversation piece, leaving him standing awkwardly to the side on more than a few occasions.

_“I don’t know if anyone gets the joke,” he had said, shifting a little and plucking at the makeshift tunic Julie had constructed for him._

_“Who cares? You look very dashing. You’re a real knight in shining spray-painted cardboard gauntlets.”_

The actual dancing wasn’t too bad, he had to admit. He wasn’t much for the flashing lights and loud, bouncing rhythms, and Julie didn’t try to force it, but they did take advantage of the slower songs. Bruce had walked her back to her dorm at the end of the night, and Julie had kissed him on the cheek, and he stayed in a daze for the rest of the weekend.

Following that, they spent even more time together, sat even closer together, talked about slightly more personal topics than they had before. Bruce hinted a little at his home life without getting into too much detail, knowing that going down that road would only lead to that thing he constantly worked to beat back roaring to the forefront. Julie quietly admitted her insecurities about her real love, her artwork, her concerns that she was creatively lacking. Sometimes their usual study sessions extended for hours, occasionally well past dinnertime. It always ended the same way, with Bruce walking Julie back to her dorm, and Julie kissing him on the cheek. There was no pressure from either of them, no expectation of more, so when Bruce one night reached for Julie’s hand on their walk, it felt as natural a progression as could be. And when he returned Julie’s kiss on the cheek, smiling at the way her face turned pink, there was a silent, mutual agreement that they would both lean in together and kiss each other for the first time.

For the first time in a long time, Bruce had kept a true grin on his face until his cheeks ached.


	4. December

Mandel set the stack of exams aside and rubbed his eyes, reaching for his herbal tea. The class had reached the usual pre-holiday slump, where the cocky kids were all floundering and frantically trying to pull their grades up from the rough start they had gotten and the nervous kids were doing fine scholastically but constantly trying to overachieve in anticipation of any potential low grades. It was a perfectly predictable pattern, and Mandel was always grateful that he had the whole of the winter holidays to grade exams, because they were exhausting this time of year.

For the most part, his students were shaping up as predicted, with one infuriating exception. Bruce Wayne continually turned in work that was too good to fail, but not good enough for praise. It was clear that the boy was talented and smart, but whether he was intentionally not bothering to apply himself or whether he was genuinely trying but couldn’t quite hit the mark was impossible to tell. Mandel might have written it off as the effects that young romance generally had on a teenager’s academics – the relationship between Bruce and Julie Madison had been the subject of much gossip in the faculty lounge – but there had been no discernable change to suggest that.

Bruce’s paper had excellent ideas and was well-researched, and Mandel could see hints of Julie’s influence here and there in some of his phrasing. But something was just… _missing,_ and Mandel couldn’t put his finger on quite what it was. It was like the boy was holding out on him in some way. The writing was terse and the paper exactly the minimum required length, not one word wasted. There would be no mistaking it for anyone else, because no student had ever been so quiet in Mandel’s experience. It was like pulling teeth to get the boy to participate, even when Mandel directly called on him and gave him no outs. Bruce was one of his biggest frustrations this year.

 _Dana McNamara had been rambling for a solid eight minutes about her opinion on the role of women in early American history. Dana was one of the nervous ones, so her tactic was to talk very quickly and for as long as possible in hopes of striking gold. She was trying to make some sort of girl power argument, trying to say that women were the ones really running the country even if the men were the ones whose names were remembered.  
  
"Because, I mean, you know, women couldn't vote until like the thirties, and so what they had to do was work at home as much as they could and try to get into jobs wherever they could, but they weren't really _allowed  _to work very much, but so they were just trying to get in there however they could, and I mean, they were the ones raising all the kids and so they were raising the sons who ended up, um, running things, you know..."_ _  
  
_ _Mandel allowed her to talk, not making any comment or even asking any guiding questions, until it was clear she was about to taper off._

_“All right, Dana, thank you,” Mandel had said, cutting her off when her face turned crimson. He looked around the room briefly. “Bruce? Your thoughts?”_

_Bruce had looked up from his notebook then, fixing Mandel with that usual unreadable expression. “Sir?”_

_“Your thoughts on what Dana was attempting to express,” Mandel had prompted, making Dana turn even redder and look down at her desk._

_“I agree with her,” was all Bruce had said before, infuriatingly, going right back to taking notes as though he were running the classroom._

_“Elaborate.”_

_Bruce had looked back up, his face as calm as ever. “Women have always been the ones running things behind the scenes while the men get to put their names on everything. The men drafting great documents and passing important laws would probably have burned down their own homes trying to make a cup of tea without the help of a wife, or a maid, or a slave. They did the important things on paper, but the women were the ones keeping them from domestic disaster. And I have to believe that for all they were kept out of official business, women must have at least part of the time held some influence over the men. A woman might not have been allowed to vote or speak up in politics, but certainly she could have had at least subtle sway at home in conversations, some influence over the general way of thinking. Of course, that doesn’t equal having real power, and it’s a struggle that goes on to this day, women having say and representation in politics. It’s still a problem. Women are vastly underrepresented all over the world and they’re often shut out of the conversation, even when the conversation is about them directly. And women have proved time and time again that when the men aren’t around, they have no trouble stepping up. Look at World War II, for example. The men went to war and the women didn’t hesitate to keep the country running while they were away. No, they didn’t have to step into political positions, but I don’t think it’s hard to believe that if they had needed to, they could have. So…I agree with Dana.”_

_Bruce had gone back to his notes then while the entire class had gaped as though he had sprouted a second head. Julie Madison, meanwhile, had beamed as though the sun had suddenly come out. It was the most the boy had ever talked at once._

_“Interesting points,” Mandel had said before turning to one of the cockiest kids in the class. “Jeffrey, care to comment?”_

None of that eloquence showed up in the paper Mandel was currently attempting to grade. For all of Bruce’s apparent thoughtfulness, this paper demonstrated little other than a stark, clinical point of view. It read more like a textbook than like anything Bruce had demonstrated that day in class, and Mandel’s frustration grew every time he tried to figure out how to approach the kid.

He sipped his tea and read over the paper once more. He made no notes, no suggestions or corrections, and wrote a bright red C- over the title. He would crack the code of this strange boy yet.  


	5. January

Bruce looked like he hadn’t slept in days, and most likely, he hadn’t. He rubbed at his eyes and pushed the stack of paper away with a sigh.

“Take a break,” Julie said gently. “You need to recharge and come back to it with fresh eyes.”

“I just don’t see what point he’s trying to make,” Bruce grumbled as though he hadn’t heard Julie speak at all. “He keeps forcing these rewrites, giving me almost no feedback, then giving me the same low grade. What’s the point? I’ve told him several times I’ll just take the grade.”

“Mandel is a sadist, you know that,” Julie said mildly as she tried and failed to get some dried paint out from under her nails.

“I can’t believe his methods are allowed.”

“He thinks he’s the next John Keating, but he’s not nearly as nice. Or as inspired.”

“Who?” Bruce looked over at her with that little frown he always got when she referenced something he didn’t know.

“John Keating. Dead Poets Society. Robin Williams.”

“I don’t think I’ve seen it.”

“I have it. Pop it in, maybe it’ll refresh you,” said Julie.

Bruce shook his head. “I really need to get this done.”

“No, you need to sleep for about seventeen hours. But I know you won’t, so a movie is a good second choice.”

She finished her futile attempts to get the last of the paint off of her skin and went to her movie collection, turning with a grin when she located the right one. Bruce looked like he was debating with himself for a moment before he finally nodded.

“All right. One movie,” he relented, sounding like it was quite the task.

“And candy.”

“Ugh.”

“Oh, like you don’t like Raisinets,” she teased as she set up the movie. “I saw you demolish that box a couple weeks ago, Mr. Health Nut.”

“I’m not a health nut, I just don’t feel well when I eat too much junk. And at least Raisinets are fruit-based.”

Julie tossed him a small box of candy as well as an orange. “It’s all about balance.”

Bruce finally smiled and moved over to Julie’s bed, stretching out and clicking off the lamp to set the ambiance for the movie. Julie joined him a moment later and curled up beside him, hugging a pillow to her lap and leaning her head on his shoulder. Bruce rested his head on hers and watched with her, as quiet and thoughtful as ever. Julie snuck a peek at him here and there to see his reaction to different parts of the movie, but Bruce was never all that easy to read. Little quirks of his mouth, the tiniest squint of those piercing eyes, the occasional soft, throaty little grunt…that was about the most she could expect most times they watched movies together.

_The movie of the day had been Little Shop of Horrors. Julie had no idea whether Bruce liked musicals, let alone intentionally cheesy science fiction musicals, so it had been a bit of a risk to take. She had resisted the urge to hum along for most of it, instead settling for looking his way after each song to see his reaction. He had mostly looked critical up until the end of “Somewhere That’s Green”, when he had picked up the remote and paused the movie._

_“That’s a nice song,” he had said simply, his eyes a hundred miles away._

_“It always makes me tear up,” Julie had admitted. “I don’t know why, because it’s actually kind of funny, I just…”_

_“Because it’s sweet and simple. It isn’t someone wanting to be a princess and lie around eating bonbons and thinking that’s happily ever after. It’s someone seeing that the kind of life most people would say is boring can actually be one of the happiest if they let it and really see how good they have it.”_

_Julie had taken a moment at that and moved a little closer to him, taking his hand in hers. “Yeah. You’re right.”_

_“It is funny, though.”_

_“It is.”_

_“But mostly it’s just…”_

_“It’s a pretty song about not needing much more than your family in order to have a good life.”_

_Bruce had swallowed hard at that and nodded, not looking at her and playing the movie again after a moment. They both cuddled a little closer to each other after that._

About twenty minutes into Dead Poets Society, Julie glanced at Bruce to find that his eyes were closed. Rather than be offended that he had fallen asleep during a movie she loved, she was relieved that the boy was actually getting some rest for once. She shifted a little, very slowly and carefully, so that he’d be able to rest his head on her shoulder instead.

She watched the movie, content and comforted by the familiar story and Bruce’s warm stillness, getting wrapped up in it all over again. She didn’t even notice when Bruce’s eyes opened, during the scene where’s Neil’s father sees him at the play, and she didn’t notice that he was watching the gut-wrenching scene where Neil killed himself. It wasn’t until she felt his whole body tense that she looked at him.

“Bruce?” she said gently.

“I’m going to get some water,” he said brusquely, pushing off of the bed all at once and stalking off into the hallway before Julie could say anything.

She stopped the movie, leaving the TV on a painfully bright blue screen as she hurried after Bruce, trying to figure out where he went. After seeing he wasn’t in the little kitchenette or the bathroom, she realized he must have gone back to his own room. She ran back to her own, grabbed her coat, and hurried across campus to Bruce’s dorm. When she reached his room, she knocked carefully, but there was no answer.

“Bruce?” she called softly, and when there was no reply, she tried again. “Hey. Bruce. I just want to be sure you’re okay. We don’t have to talk.”

After a long moment, Bruce opened the door. He wasn’t looking at her, and he somehow looked even more tired than before. Julie reached out to touch him, then stopped.

“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice careful and quiet.

He shook his head, still not looking at her.

“I wasn’t thinking. I didn’t think about…I should have remembered that part. It’s a huge part. But I didn’t think at all,” she babbled.

Bruce just shook his head again, and this time Julie reached out and just barely touched his arm. Bruce looked up at her, and she could see a thousand and one things behind those eyes, which now looked infinitely sad. He looked at her for the longest time, as though trying to tell her something without words, then he took a breath.

“Will you please come in?” he said quietly, stepping back to give her room.

He shut the door after her, and they didn’t talk. Julie just walked closer and hugged him, and he hugged her back, until both their arms were tired.

“You need to sleep,” she said softly, and this time he nodded.

They got to his bed, where he almost fell into it, and Julie had planned to just tuck him in and sit beside him until he was asleep. One look at his face, though, and she knew the better course of action would be to carefully crawl in beside him. They just cuddled close to each other, silent, both of them with pounding, aching hearts, until neither could fight that particular fatigue that comes from sadness any longer and fell asleep in each other’s arms.


	6. February

In Julie, Bruce had found someone with whom he could share those things he had always tucked away and pushed aside, and he could be certain she would not think badly of him. Following the incident with the movie, they had talked quietly for a long, long time, about everything. Bruce had really opened up to her, and the words had come out in a rush like a dam breaking. The story of what had happened to his parents was, of course, more or less common knowledge. Still, though, no one except perhaps Alfred knew the ins and outs of it all, knew the pain and desperate loneliness it had caused Bruce. Telling it to someone else felt good. Alfred had simply _known_ all this, but Bruce was actually putting it all into words and voicing it to Julie. And it helped a bit.

_Julie had listened with wide, gentle eyes, not moving except to nod every so often. When Bruce had talked himself hoarse and started to feel exhausted by it all, she had simply hugged him close for a while._

_“I’m so sorry,” she had said quietly, her voice a little strained. “I can’t imagine. I’m so sorry.”_

_Bruce had suddenly felt embarrassed and pulled away a little. “It shouldn’t still be so bad. After this much time…”_

_“You can’t put a timer on some things.”_

_“But just seeing a gun in a movie shouldn’t make me so…it just shouldn’t.”_

_“Maybe you should talk to someone.”_

_“I’m talking to you.”_

_“No, I mean-“_

_“I know what you meant. No.”_

_“Bruce. It might do you a lot of good.”_

_He had shaken his head at that, and tried to roll away. Julie had stopped him._

_“Okay. So you don’t want to see a doctor. That’s up to you,” she had said. “But…you know. Just tuck it in the back of your mind, okay? And if you don’t want to, fine, but…but you can talk to me. You know that. Anytime. I don’t care if you just say the same things over and over, just as long as you’re not holding it in like that anymore.”_

_“I don’t like to be a burden to anyone.”_

_“I wouldn’t offer if it was a burden.”_

The subject had never come up again, but Bruce knew Julie had been careful not to suggest movies that featured guns after that. He suspected that she had reorganized her collection so that they were grouped carefully, so she wouldn’t accidentally put him in that position again. The thoughtfulness of that, and the fact that she didn’t mention it, wrung his heart.

So, when it came time for that time-honored tradition of a Valentine’s Day dance, this time it was Bruce who did the asking.

“It could be fun,” Bruce said, showing her the flier.

“Fun,” she repeated a little flatly. “Are you pranking me?”

He laughed. “Would I ever?”

“No, you wouldn’t.”

“So?”

“So…I do happen to look really good in pink.”

He smiled at her. “Well, then. It’s a date.”

She grinned, and as she did, the winter sun caught her hair and set it ablaze. Some people looked too washed out in the sun – Bruce knew this of himself – but Julie seemed to glow.

“What?” Julie said, and Bruce realized he had been staring.

“Nothing.”

“What, do I have paint somewhere?”

“No…you just…you look nice.”

Julie’s cheeks went a little pink, and Bruce kissed each of them before squeezing her hand.

“I have to get to class,” he said. “See you at dinner?”

“You got it.”

He gave her a quick kiss and made to leave, but Julie caught his arm.

“Wait. Real quick,” she said, smiling.

“Hmm?”

“Just…love you.”

Bruce blinked, and for a second he didn’t react, but then he got his brain back in gear and kissed her again. He suddenly laughed a little.

“What, that’s funny?” Julie said, pretending to be offended, but smiling a little.

“No, what’s funny is I just thought of one of your movies.”

“What? Which one?”

“Say it again.”

“Say what?”

“You know what.”

Julie looked at him curiously. “I love you.”

“Ditto,” he said, and he hurried off, still laughing.

“I _knew_ there was a movie geek deep inside Bruce Wayne!” Julie called after him, the sunlight in her voice now. “Called it!”

“You’ve got me figured out!” he called back, and he turned the corner, missing her already.


End file.
